


so whimsical, so pretty, so magical... so wrong

by AuroraKant



Series: Whumptober2020 [14]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics)
Genre: And His Family Fucking Loves Him, Body Horror, But He Does Not Die, Comic Book Science, Dick Grayson Gets a Hug, Dick Grayson Is A Very Sad Boy In This One, Dick Grayson Needs a Hug, Dick Grayson Whump, Dick Grayson is Nightwing, Gen, Hurt Dick Grayson, Medical Inaccuracies, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Open Ending, Protective Bruce Wayne, Protective Damian Wayne, Protective Tim Drake, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-15
Updated: 2020-10-15
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:34:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27026647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuroraKant/pseuds/AuroraKant
Summary: There were two wings on Dick’s back – they were big and bulky – but when Bruce touched them, they felt frail and easily breakable. They made it hard for them to find a comfortable position for his son, Dick now resting on his side, the wings displayed behind him.Bruce wished he could look away. He wanted the ability to close his eyes and focus on something else, but his brain was forced to catalogue every small change – and every larger one.Or: An avid Nightwing fan gets his hands on a substance that allows him to turn Dick into something else - no matter the prize Dick himself has to pay for that.
Relationships: Batfamily Members & Dick Grayson, Dick Grayson & Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson & Damian Wayne, Dick Grayson & Jason Todd, Dick Grayson & Tim Drake
Series: Whumptober2020 [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1948651
Comments: 32
Kudos: 209
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	so whimsical, so pretty, so magical... so wrong

**Author's Note:**

> Hello my dear friends!!  
> This is a... darker one, mostly because Dick desperately needs some hugs! And THERAPY!!  
> Special Thanks to FanfictionGreenIrises who read through it, edited some things, and made my self-doubt motheaten brain go away! 
> 
> Comments, Kudos, Bookmarks and Feedback give me life and make me very happy! <3<3<3<3

The world was hazy.

Things were moving, but Dick was static, a silent center in this storm of motion.

It was hard to focus on anything, fire dancing through his veins. It should hurt more, some far of part of his brain noted, there was fire inside of him – it should definitely hurt more. But instead it only burned a little – mostly Dick felt warm.

That being said, it wasn’t as if existing was pleasant by any count. His skin felt stretched thin, and his bones ached and ached and ached. There was a weird itch running down his spine, and Dick had no idea what he had to do to be allowed to scratch it.

Not that he had the energy to move.

No, he weighted a million pounds, and his body was more than happy to become one with the table he was laying on.

Someone was talking somewhere above his head, but it was hard to focus. Nah, it was hard to do anything at all just now. And yet, Dick tried to listen:

“This is the final injection, my dear Nightwing. Soon you will soar through the sky, burning bright and short and hopeful. Only one small pinch, and maybe another corrective surgery and you are perfect-“

Dick didn’t like the voice, neither how high it was, nor how excited it sounded. Whatever they were talking about, Dick had the vague feeling that it would only bring him pain. Evil people monologuing usually tended to end in pain.

It would be easier if he could open his eyes, but the only thing he was able see when he blinked them open were blue flames and flashing lights that skewered his sensitive brain.

It was easier to just exist… to breathe through the pain intensifying in his back and the weird way his jaw tingled. He was too tired to heave himself of this table anyways.

A needle pierced through his skin, and another wave of fire came crashing down, eating him alive from the inside out.

It was everywhere. It was all consuming.

He was screaming – but Dick wasn’t sure if anybody heard him at all.

His head tilted sideways, a soft hand touching his jaw.

It hurt.

Everything hurt.

Dick could feel every bone inside his body strain, could feel how his back ached, and his skin itched. It was… it was agony.

Maybe he was crying – he couldn’t find it in himself to care.

There was still a fire burning inside of him, but it felt contained now… which meant that Dick could feel all the other parts of his body that hurt and had been previously masked by the flames. Now, he could feel the deep wrongness in the way his legs were positioned, and the clawing horror of something on his back… he could…

_He wanted it to stop._

It was a sensation of horror; a pain so deep Dick had no idea what to do about it. It was uncomfortable and gruesome and… Dick had no idea what was going on. It didn’t feel like the pain of a broken bone – that was something Dick could deal with. It didn’t feel like sickness or torture…. It just felt **_wrong_**. He just wanted it to stop. _He needed it to stop_.

“Oh… B! I have found Nightwing…”

“What’s his status?”

There were voices, but Dick just wished them gone. Every noise was painful to his ears, and just the presence of another human was a promise of agony to come. Dick wasn’t ready for another round of whatever the fuck had just happened to him.

He wasn’t strong enough, as much as it pained him to admit that.

“Um… I think you should see for yourself…”

“Holy Fuck, Replacement… what have they done to him? His skin looks… ouch, that has to hurt”

Why couldn’t they stop? Why couldn’t they just move on? Dick wanted to be alone. He wouldn’t survive another round of torture… couldn’t they just go? Why did they have to stand there and contemplate his fate? Wasn’t it enough that Dick couldn’t find it in himself anymore to struggle?

“Red Hood, Red Robin--- what is his status? ETA five minutes.”

“Well… it… that bastard sure did a number on him… his skin is… I think it is falling of… maybe rotting away? I can’t really tell. Just… the Golden Boy is more black and blue than usual. Um… you better hurry up, B, and I hope you have the Batmobile with you.”

There was a distant sound of cursing, and Dick let himself get dragged back under. It was easier to face the demons of darkness, the horrors of unconsciousness, than to wait for them to finish talking.

Dick had no idea what new terror they would rain on him, or what agony awaited him on the other side – he only knew it was easier to sleep than to be awake while facing it.

* * *

Bruce watched the creature – _no, his son! His son!_ – in front of him.

They had managed to successfully free him from the lab he’d been held prisoner in, but that had been the only part they’d been successful in. Everything else? They had been way too late.

It hurt to watch the slow expanse of his son’s chest, it hurt because it looked so foreign. Most – but for some reason not all – of Dick’s skin had been peeled away to uncover paper-thin scales underneath. They were black, shimmering blue under the right light, and Bruce could understand why Jason had first thought them to be decay.

The color was definitely reminiscent of the more gruesome cases of rotten flesh Brue had encountered in his long career.

Not that the scales were their biggest problem.

There were two wings on Dick’s back – they were big and bulky – but when Bruce touched them, they felt frail and easily breakable. They made it hard for them to find a comfortable position for his son, Dick now resting on his side, the wings displayed behind him.

Bruce wished he could look away. He wanted the ability to close his eyes and focus on something else, but his brain was forced to catalogue every small change – and every larger one.

Dick’s legs were… they pointed in the wrong direction. His knees had basically been turned around, so they looked similar to the hindlegs of a dog, or those of a painted dragon, especially with the scales covering Dick’s body and the artificial wings spread wide.

His ears were longer now, and his teeth sharper and… bigger. Otherwise Dick’s face had remained mostly unchanged, some skin even continuously covering his nose and the area around his eyes. In a way… it almost looked like a reverse Nightwing mask.

What pained Bruce the most wasn’t the fact that his son had been changed against his will; no, it was the fact that Dick was in obvious distress, even while unconscious.

Dick was shifting in his sleep, whimpering and sighing – even through the heavy-duty pain meds they had administered to make sure he would sleep through the worst of his body adjusting to whatever had been done.

Bruce couldn’t even imagine what kind of pain would accompany a change like that, especially since it had happened in a matter of days, the costumed villain kidnapping Nightwing only in possession of the boy for half a week.

And yet… there were no open wounds besides some almost completely healed surgery scars, and Dick’s body was _fine_ , if you could use a word like this to describe a body violation like that.

It hurt to think that Bruce could do nothing to ease his son’s suffering – at least not yet.

He turned back towards Tim, who was typing away on the Batcomputer. Tim’s shoulders were telling Bruce just how hard the boy was trying to suppress his need to glance back towards Dick every twelve seconds in an effort to reassure himself that his brother was still alive. Bruce understood where Tim was coming from – he was feeling the same way after all.

The phrase _like father like son_ never rang truer than when it came to Bruce and Tim.

Both of them were trying to solve this problem the only way they knew how: by vigilant research and a stubbornness that seemed inhuman.

Bruce stopped next to Tim, his hand careful as it came to rest on top of his son’s shoulder. As expected, Tim flinched anyway, his gaze finding Bruce in a matter of moments, the tension in his body easing only momentarily.

But Tim’s eyes didn’t hold the promised solution; no, they were mirrors of despair. Bruce could feel the dread well up inside of him, but he pushed it back down. He could despair later – for now he had to focus:

“What have you found?”

“Many things. None of them good. The scales aren’t actually scales – they are feathers, thin but hard, feathers. Dick’s temperature is high, and his heartbeat is too fast – his body is trying to sustain the strain of the injury and the new appendages, but he is losing heat, the feathers not offering any isolation against the cold whatsoever and his body fat content is basically nonexistent.”

Bruce let the words wash over him, let them sink down into his bones and his consciousness, before he motioned for Tim to continue.

Tim did:

“Whatever the guy did happened on a molecular level. A DNA level. The only surgical – and with that reversable – changes I could locate were the position of his knees and the exact shape of that piece of skin still covering his eyes. Whoever that guy was, he made sure that it wouldn’t be easy for us to help Dick – all while sticking to the Nightwing aesthetic.”

“What can we do then? Dick is obviously in pain.”

“That’s the problem, isn’t it?”

Tim looked tired. They had found Dick forty-eight hours or so ago – Tim helping Jason when the two of them stumbled upon their injured brother – and he hadn’t allowed himself to rest yet. Bruce made a note to send Tim to bed once their conversation was over, and he had all the information he would need to continue working on this.

“I am not sure,” Tim said. “We could probably remove the wings, but it would be a dangerous and strenuous surgery. Many big blood vessels got rerouted to pass through them, so Dick would have to be in a better physical condition when the surgery happened, as if not to risk him dying on the operation table. But otherwise? Maybe his knees? I am sure the teeth could be filed down, and the claws could be clipped… but Bruce, it won’t even come to that!”

“And why is that?”

“Because with how Dick’s body is running itself ragged right now? Dick won’t even survive two weeks.”

“What?”

Bruce hadn’t had the time to look at the data himself before now, but he knew that Tim would never lie to him about something like that. No, Tim was telling the truth, no matter how much Bruce wished he didn’t.

The look on his son’s face was grim as he continued, his eyes wandering towards Dick for only a moment before they focused on Bruce once more:

“Sustaining this body costs energy. Energy Dick doesn’t have – he is constantly losing heat on pretty much every part of his body, and his heart is still the heart of a human – it just… it isn’t strong enough to pump blood through this larger body. His reserves are already almost gone, and maybe we can help… but sooner rather than later, he will just… his heart will just stop, or his lungs will fail. People don’t just bounce back from violent body modifications like these, Bruce.”

Something heavy sat on his chest, but Bruce didn’t have the time to worry about that. He wouldn’t let his son die. He couldn’t just sit by and watch as his boy died.

“Then I will have to do everything to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

“You are just… you are Batman, Bruce, but you aren’t God.”

“But I know a few – Gods, that is.”

With that, Bruce turned around. He had a few phone calls to make.

* * *

This wasn’t the first time Dick had woken up in the Cave after an injury, but it was the first time he was as cold as he was just now.

His entire body ached, and it felt wrong in a way Dick was too tired to puzzle through right this moment. He wanted a blanket and a warm water bottle, and maybe then he could sleep some more. It would be easier to face the day – and Bruce’s disappointed glare – if he was allowed to rest first. Maybe even sleep of some of the pain meds cursing through his veins.

Sleep had never hurt anybody, and it was the best medicine when one got injured. At least, that’s what Alfred always said. 

His eyes were about to close again, his body still shivering, when a heavy coat got draped over him. Dick forced his eyes to stay open, and he forced them to focus on the man in front of him: Jason.

It was weird. Jason never stayed in the Cave once a fight was over, and he rarely looked as worried as he did right now. Dick didn’t like it – it was always a bad sign when the angriest of them (aka Bruce and Jason) had open worry visible on their face.

It usually meant that one of them was about to die.

As Dick was the one currently occupying the med bay, he took his chances and croaked:

“How bad?”

His voice sounded rough, as if he had screamed himself bloody before he had finally lost consciousness. The last few days were extremely hazy in Dick’s mind so it wasn’t even as if he could deny that possibility outright.

In front of him Jason seemed to struggle with how to answer him, and that did nothing to ease the panic starting to build up inside his stomach. He was still freezing – but now fear was running him cold as well.

“Um… I should not… ah, fuck it. You… you got turned into a dragon-human hybrid? I guess? And…”

For a moment Jason’s voice dropped away, replaced by the high and daunting voice of his captor as he declared: _“Nightwing is such a pretty bird – don’t you want to fly just like him?”_

Jason was still talking when Dick returned to the present, a shiver running down his spine and something… _something moved at that notion_.

“Anyhow… Timbers thinks, like, he is pretty sure…”

Jason was one of the most eloquent people Dick knew, but whenever he was scared, he turned into a rambling mess. Not that Dick cared about Jason right now, the weird sensation of something moving on his back taking his entire focus.

Something was wrong.

_Something was very, very wrong:_

“Jay…? What…? Did something move on my back?”

“Um… fuck, yeah, you have wings now, Dickiebird. And scales – though Tim said they are actually feathers.”

“Jay… what?”

His skin was tingling, and Dick finally managed to tear his eyes away from Jason’s panicked face towards his own arm. An arm that was completely midnight black, covered in something that was decidedly not skin. And at the end of his arm… he had claws.

 _Claws_.

He… this was wrong. He was human – he didn’t have claws. He was Dick Grayson, a very human boy, prodigy to the very human Batman.

In his panic Dick moved again, and this time he could really feel the wings move as well – it was painful.

A soft cry of distress escaped him, as he tried to push himself up from where he was laying on the medical bed. Nothing worked like it was supposed to, his body a foreign machine Dick had never gotten the chance to read a manual for. He could feel the wings move – because they touched his back, and because he could feel unknown muscles go taut with every movement.

The tension running from his shoulders down his spine and up into something… wrong, inhuman, not-Dick Grayson was pure agony. It felt as if Dick had been running a marathon, pushing his muscles beyond what they should be able to bear… it felt as if his back was being torn open and his shoulders were being stretched wide.

His arms buckled under the weight, and as the coat and blanket slipped away, Dick could see that… that nothing looked like it was supposed to. His entire skin was coated in the black stuff, and his legs… it was wrong.

 **Wrong**!

It was painful… now that Dick had seen the utter destruction that had been brought upon his body, he could feel his hips protest the weird position of his legs – and he could feel his stomach protest the sight in front of him.

It looked disgusting. His entire body looked disgusting and wrong and horrible and… this wasn’t him! This couldn’t be him!

It was getting harder to breathe and Dick couldn’t help himself – he had to touch whatever was coating him in black… it was soft, and he could feel his pulse hammering through the thin layer of… Jason had called it feathers.

It was… so whimsical, so pretty, so magical… Dick used his claws to tear into his arm.

He needed it gone.

It had to go.

Maybe he would find his real skin underneath. Maybe Dick only had to rip the feathers off, and he would find Dick Grayson again. Maybe this was a nightmare and the only thing he had to do was trick himself into waking up.

“Fuck! Dick, what are you doing?”

Jason was yelling, but Dick had no time for this, he had to…

“I have to get it off.”

His entire body had been stolen from him, a fake had been used to replace it – it was all wrong, all fucked-up. But Dick would make it right again. He would find his skin again, and he would break his legs if that’s what it took to make them right again. He would… he would claw his own eyes out if that meant he was no longer forced to see the disgusting sight in front of him.

Air only entered his lungs in short bursts of oxygen, his heart running away in fear and confusion.

It hurt.

Why did it hurt?

He watched as red blood poured down his arm, and he used his hands to continue scratching. The pain was distant, as if it was happening to someone else, and Dick… he just teared and screamed and yelled. It was easier than to stop and think. It was easier to scream than to cry. It was easier to let himself be warmed by the blood pouring down his arms than to face the cold encasing his heart.

And something eased inside of him as he watched the red spill down onto the bed.

At least his blood was still the right color.

At least something was still okay and correct and right and… and not wrong.

He had to get it off!

It was something else… not him… never him….

He was Dick Grayson. He was human. He was… he wasn’t this ugly thing, with the painful legs, and the fire running down his spine. He was… he was…

It was getting harder to focus, the pain inside of him so piercing and fierce. It hurt to exist.

But no matter what he did, no matter how deeply he pushed the claws inside his arm, the only thing he achieved was coating everything in blood. The wings connected to his back – and why were they connected? _Take them away_! **TAKE THEM AWAY**! – fluttered and moved, spikes of discomfort racing down his spine every single time.

Dick didn’t trust himself to be strong enough, but he wanted to turn around and rip them from his body with his own red stained claws. He wanted… he needed them gone. But when he turned around, a sharp pain pierced through his chest, and his legs buckled, sending him skidding from the medical bed.

It was Jason who caught him; Jason who hugged him close in a de-escalation grip for panicking or angry people every Robin had learned; Jason who jammed a needle in Dick’s neck, not caring that Dick was screaming and crying and hurting.

There was nothing Dick could do when darkness claimed him again.

There was no room for anything besides the panic and the fear.

His arms were bandaged, and restrained, Dick noticed almost immediately when he woke up. This time it was his own room in the Manor that greeted him, when he opened his eyes. There was an IV line connecting Dick’s arm with a rack next to his bed, a myriad of colorful bags hanging on it. Dick was laying on his back, something soft cocooning the appendages growing from his shoulders and he felt almost… comfortable.

He was also buried under at least a dozen blankets, some of them self-heating.

It felt as if he was warm for the first time in forever.

“You are awake.”

Bruce liked to state the obvious at the beginning of a conversation; he said it made him look cool and in control – Dick knew it was his need to say something at all that forced Bruce to say things like this.

“Yes.”

“You had a panic attack. Tried to kill yourself.”

“Yes…”

Dick was too tired to try and act as if the memories weren’t still haunting him. He felt exhausted, as if he had run a thousand miles, and his eyelids were threatening to fall closed again… but he would answer Bruce – maybe because he wanted answers as well.

“Jason is scared. I have… I have never seen him so scared before, Dick…. All his clothes were covered in your blood… I was scared as well, Dick.”

“I know…”

Dick had always known – all of them did – that losing one of them was Bruce’s worst nightmare. And yet… his heart was still beating too fast and he couldn’t bring himself to be truly sorry for what he had done. The all-consuming panic was only one false step away, a stray thought and Dick would spiral again.

His voice was still small and subdued when he spoke again:

“What is happening?”

“A… An avid Nightwing fan got his fingers on a substance that… basically returns the body to a ‘character building mode’.”

While Bruce had grown more comfortable again, the topic returning to something that didn’t force him to face his fears, it was still rather obvious that Bruce had used Tim’s explanation as a stepping point. Dick found it oddly comforting. He liked to know that the others got along with Bruce – he liked these tiny reminders that they were a family.

Even if some lost part of Dick whispered that this could be the sign he needed, that they would be okay even if Dick… even if he destroyed the monster he had become.

“With the right programing, the substance changes the molecular structure of the body… and its components. The problem is… he wanted to create Nightwing, he had some rather impressive character sheets, and drawings, but… he was a shit programmer.”

“What does that mean, Bruce?”

For a moment Bruce didn’t answer, and it was painful to watch as the strong gaze of the man that carried Gotham on his back, helplessly focused on his nervously fidgeting hands.

“Bruce?”

“His… changes are not compatible with your body. Or with the parts he didn’t change. Your heart is failing. Your lungs… some of your other internal organs might be affected as well… and your skin is too thin… very fragile – as are some of your bones.”

“If… If you have that substance and you know how it works… Tim is a better programmer! Change me back! Bruce! _CHANGE ME BACK_!”

“We can’t…”

Dick’s heart was hammering away, and it felt a bit like dying. Bruce was… Bruce was crying. And Dick knew he had lost – if Batman cried the chances were basically zero to none.

“What do you mean, you can’t? You are the FUCKING BATMAN!”

“From… if he had been better at his job, it would be easier for your body, less strenuous, and it would… it would be easier for us to follow the clues in your DNA and reverse what has happened. As it is? It would take time we don’t have, and even then, some things would probably end up being permanent.”

“So what? Am I just supposed to sit here and wait to die?”

Anger… Dick was feeling angry, and it was a welcome emotion in contrast to the ugliness cursing through his veins earlier. Being angry felt productive, even if Dick couldn’t move, even with Dick tied down and drowning in comfort.

“No. I am doing everything I can. I have called every magic user I know; I have called Clark and Diana and… I am doing everything I can, Dick… Just… I don’t know if it will be enough. And I won’t make any promises I can’t keep – I just… I need you to work with me here.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means… please don’t hurt yourself. Not while I still have a chance to save you. Not while there is still a silver of hope left.”

Dick wanted to close his eyes and vanish into the great nothing. Maybe if he crossed over, he would no longer have this skin that felt so delicate underneath his fin- _his claws_. Or he would be wingless again – but capable of flying in the only way that mattered.

Maybe his fangs wouldn’t get caught in the flesh of his cheeks anymore, and his chest wouldn’t ache… maybe he would feel human again.

But Bruce had asked something else from him.

And Dick… he liked to disobey Bruce and challenge him, he liked to trick the man and make his life harder… but he also followed every order Bruce gave him like this: Fear visible in his eyes, worry starkly written on his face.

“Okay…”

“Thank you.”

 _Don’t thank me yet_ , Dick wanted to mutter, but he didn’t. Instead he closed his eyes.

Bruce left the room and Dick did his best not to see anything he wasn’t supposed to see – it was bad enough that he could feel how wrong and disgusting his body was.

* * *

Damian had planned on spending a week at the Kent farm with Jon, but on day three Kent had gotten a call from Father and his face had grown all serious, and now….

And now, roughly twenty-four hours later, Damian was on his way back to Gotham, and he knew danger was brewing. No one had told him yet just what was going on, but it couldn’t be good no matter what it was. Not with the way Kent kept glanced towards him as they drove, not with the way his own stomach grumbled in dark foreboding.

They had reached the Manor when Kent finally turned around and addressed him. It had taken the man long enough to gather his wits and step up, the unease inside of Damian threatening to drown him:

“When you… please listen to Bruce before you do anything rash, okay? He can’t… he needs you to be strong right now, Damian.”

“Pah, I am always strong.”

With that Damian left the car behind, even if the dread pooling in his stomach had gotten disgustingly hard to bear. Something was wrong and he would very much appreciate it if someone would just tell him what it was.

It was Pennyworth, who opened the door for him, the man looking at least a decade older than he had when Damian left for his trainings-trip-that-was-most-certainly-not-a-vacation. The bad feeling was getting worse and worse.

“Master Damian, I am happy to see you safely return home. Shall I-“

“What is going on, Pennyworth?”

For a moment Pennyworth’s mustache quivered as if he wanted to lash out or cry, but his voice was as dry as always when he answered:

“I think it would be better for your Father to explain, but since Master Bruce is busy _elsewhere_ \--- Master Richard has fallen sick and he is in a… precarious situation.”

No.

Not Richard.

Damian was moving before it registered, his small body pushing past Alfred and up the stairs. He was quick – of course, he was, he was Robin after all – and it didn’t take him long to reach the room of his former guardian. Not even the yelled, “Let him be, child!” could stop him now, as he pushed open the doors.

It wasn’t Richard laying in the bed.

It was some sort of creature, all twisted and frightening and midnight blue.

Damian was ready to storm out of the room again, or maybe attack the monster inhabiting his brother’s space, when their eyes met, and a voice so much frailer than Damian had ever heard it, croaked:

“Damian?”

It was Richard’s eyes staring back at him. The deep blue, the wrinkles in the corner of his eyes, the way his left iris had speckles of brown distributed evenly throughout it. They were Richard’s eyes.

But it still wasn’t Richard’s body.

“Ri-Richard… what happened?”

Only now could Damian see the restrains holding Richard’s arms down, and the bandages covering the scaly skin. It looked… sad and undignified. Damian stepped closer.

“I… I am stuck like this…”

Richard sounded just as lost as Damian felt and suddenly Damian realized that, for once in his life, it wasn’t Dick who would have to be the strong one. Looking at the sorry form of his brother – at how wrong and pitiful he looked – Damian realized… that Richard needed him.

Damian was needed – because Richard as he was just now, couldn’t carry the weight of the sky on his back, and the lives of people in his hands. Richard as he was now, needed a strong shoulder to lean on, and a little brother to cuddle with.

“How can I help? What do you need?”

Damian had done his very best to learn how to read Richard, back when they had been Batman and Robin, back when they had almost been Father and Son. He watched now, as his question registered for Richard, and how the façade of fragile composure crumbled.

Richard was crying, sobbing, trashing in his restrains.

Damian would never in his entire existence tell anyone that he was sacred. Instead, he swallowed down the dread and stepped closer, until he had almost reached Richard’s bed. There was an IV rack next to the bed, and Damian read the labels of the medicine running through Richard’s body, while the man’s cries slowly ebbed away.

They were giving him drugs for his heart, and muscle relaxants, and a small sedative – probably to keep the panic and the pain at bay.

It didn’t seem to be working.

Richard had calmed down next to him, tears still running down a face that was weirdly familiar and yet so, so distinctly different.

“Sorry…”

It was… It was a disgrace for Richard to sound this broken, this lost, and Damian did his best not to let the pity show. He knew that pity was the last emotion a proud warrior could bear while the world was keeping them down, and he knew how strenuous the emotional taxing consequences of a horrible injury could be.

Instead of showing pity, Damian allowed himself to show his sorrow – and to offer Richard what the man had offered him, when Damian had been lost in the confusion and pain and horror of getting his spine replaced.

He carefully took a seat next to Richard on the bed, cautious not to disturb any of the medical equipment, and leaned his back against the headboard of the bed. He didn’t try to cuddle, or to sneak underneath the uncountable amounts of blankets, but he tried to offer his comfort:

“There is nothing you have to be sorry for, Richard. You seem distressed and in pain – it was you who told me it was normal to lose control of one’s emotions in a situation like that.”

“But you are my… a kid, you shouldn’t have to see this.”

“I am anything but normal, Richard, I will cope.”

Damian didn’t say that his heart had almost stopped when Richard started crying, or how his soul had ached when Richard almost called him _his_ … instead, he settled down next to the older man, offering his companionship to ease the pain of whatever had happened.

Damian was afraid to ask, unsure if Richard was willing to talk or if it would only upset the man further. So, Damian stayed silent, and watched the blanket mountain move minimally every time Richard took a deep breath.

Silence had settled over them, when Richard spoke again, his face turned towards Damian, his eyes drowned in fear:

“I… I am going to die like this.”

“What?”

“I am… Bruce can’t change me back and… none of the people they found until now can either… I am…”

“Bullshit, Richard. You will survive and you will return to your normal annoying self in no time. I just know it.”

Damian didn’t know it. He could see from the look in Richard’s eyes that the man believed what he had just said, but Damian couldn’t allow himself to fall like that. Richard wouldn’t die – especially not like this. If Damian allowed himself to think like that, all hope would be lost.

Robin was a symbol of hope – it was Damian’s job to remain steadfast in his believe in the matter.

Richard seemed to appreciate Damian’s bullheadedness, something soft in the twist of his dark, thin lips as he whispered:

“Language…”

“Pah! As if I haven’t heard or said worse! Let me tell you a secret, Richard… I even sometimes say the word Fuck.”

A desperate pearl of laughter escaped Richard, something freeing and yet sorrowful. Damian wanted… he wanted to hear it again. The small joy from turning Richard’s attention away from his own suffering, felt like a victory.

They were Batman and Robin.

He was the light to Batman’s darkness.

“Let me tell you about what Jon did while I was at Kent’s ridiculous farm… would you enjoy that?”

“Yeah… I always liked the farm.”

“Bad taste, but okay. Now Jon is a buffoon half of the time, and frightfully clever-“

Damian started to talk. It didn’t come naturally to him, the words feeling foreign and wrong on his tongue, and yet he continued to aimlessly blabber away. Next to him Richard seemed to relax, and when his Father eased the door open hours later, Richard was peacefully sleeping.

Damian had found himself nodding off, the last few days exhausting, and the last few hours emotionally draining, but the presence of his Father woke him up in a matter of seconds.

“Damian…”

Father looked… wrecked. There were dark circles underneath his eyes, and stubble decorating his jawline. It felt… wrong. It was wrong.

Damian couldn’t stop himself from crying, silent tears running down his cheeks, when the realization hit: Richard hadn’t been overtly fatalistic when he proclaimed his own demise – he had probably spoken the truth.

No.

Not Richard.

“Father… so it is true then?”

“What is true?”

“That Richard is going to die.”

Damian made sure to keep his voice down, not wanting to disrupt the probably first restful sleep Richard had managed in days. His voice was breaking, and Father’s answering whisper didn’t help anything at all:

“Most likely… yes.”

“What can I do to help?”

There had to be something.

“Be… be there for him. I am doing what I can, and I haven’t given up yet… but he needs someone by his side.”

It was… Father was asking a lot from him. It was hard enough to sit by and watch Richard suffer – but now Father demanded that Damian also refrained from looking for a cure.

Richard sighed next to Damian, and he saw the small smile curving over long teeth, and a changed face.

“I will do my best.”

“Thank you.”

* * *

Dick sat propped up in bed and ate a bowl of soup under the watchful gaze of Alfred and Damian, his two guard dogs.

No, that was unfair, the frustration talking… Dick loved them. He really did. But he was sick of their faces, and soup, and this bed and room and… and he was sick of his continuous existence, not that he could tell anyone that. 

They all looked so incredibly sad when Dick told them he didn’t want to remain this monster, that he hated the way his skin/feathers/scales felt, and he got physically sick whenever he saw even a glance of the appendages growing from his spine.

Weeks had passed since Dick had first woken up in the Cave, horror cursing through his veins, and he was still dying, even if Bruce had managed to slow it down.

At this point all of them were pretty sure it would be his heart that would finally kill him.

Zatanna had managed to fuse the wings to his back in a way that lowered the strain on his body, and Constantine had turned his legs into the right direction again. The Green Lantern Corps had managed to strengthen the feathers covering his body, making them harder and better isolated – Dick felt as if he was constantly wearing full-body armor. It was stifling and painful, even if it ensured that his breath came a bit easier, and the cold stayed away for longer.

His claws had been filed down, as had his fangs, and everyone was doing their best to act as if it wasn’t a monster inhabiting their home. They acted as if he was still Dick Grayson, and not some abomination – not that either would survive long.

Because no matter what Bruce did, no matter who or what he tried, they couldn’t strengthen Dick’s heart permanently. Zatanna and Constantine had claimed the heart to be holy and untouchable by their magic, while the Green Lanterns tried, but didn’t succeed.

None of the other professional that had traversed Dick’s room as if it was a party hall had been able to help either.

Instead, Bruce had managed to prolong Dick’s suffering without saving him – no, in many ways Bruce had managed to tie him to this wrong body even more permanently, many of the changes now irreversible, due to Bruce forcing others to incorporate them more deeply into Dick.

Even if he survived, he would always have these horrible leathery wings, and the claws, and the teeth and the scales. He would never again look like his parents, and he would never again look like himself.

Fuck, he didn’t even feel like himself anymore.

He felt weak… over the last few weeks whatever energy reserves Dick still had, had slowly bled away, until he needed Damian and Alfred to watch him eat, in case his hands shook too much, or they cramped, sending spasms through his arm.

It was a weird feeling, to be able to sense as his heart slowly began to fail.

He was constantly exhausted; on some days Alfred had to help him sit up – the horrible restrains thankfully long gone. It was harder to breathe than it should be, stones sitting on his chest, pushing the air from Dick’s lungs if he just dared to think about moving away from the bed.

He was an invalid, unable to move or eat or shit, without someone else helping him.

All the while his body had been taken from him, and Dick had to swallow down nausea every time he accidentally glanced his reflection in the metallic glean of the spoon.

It was ridiculous. It was his existence.

It only sucked that Dick hated it.

It didn’t help that everyone was hovering, Damian barely leaving his side at all. The boy was always cuddling with him, or drawing on Dick’s desk while Dick tried to focus on an audiobook. And… some part of Dick was deeply grateful, Damian actually managing to keep the pity and the premature grief from his actions, but the larger part of him… he just wanted to be alone. He wanted to suffer in silence, and drown in his own sorrow.

Because he had been unable to allow himself to break like he had on the second day after waking up, when Damian had found him, ever since the boy had taken to keeping vigil.

Because… Dick couldn’t show Damian and Alfred just how deeply upset he was, how much the urge to scratch every scale of his body was still occupying his every thought. He couldn’t reveal how bad the itch to disappear really was – they would only needlessly worry, and they couldn’t help him anyway.

They had already done enough.

So, instead Dick bore the watchful gaze of Alfred and Damian as he ate, and he let Alfred clean him when his hand spasmed, and soup ran down his face. He let them help him lay back down, and he even said good night with a smile on his face when they left the room, the door still open, never closing.

His chest was painfully tight, but Dick smiled through it.

He smiled through the tears and the agony and the way he hated what he had become.

The man had tried to turn him into Nightwing, the dragon and hero, and instead he had destroyed what it meant to be Dick Grayson, what it meant to actually fly.

* * *

Tim was no stranger to pain, and no stranger to dread, and yet it was uniquely painful to watch Dick waste away.

Bruce had done everything a human could hope to achieve, and in some ways he had been successful. The strain on Dick’s body had been eased, the chronic pain hopefully now in a manageable range. Dick’s heart was… still beating, even if Dick was now connected to an oxygen tank to make breathing a bit easier for him.

From the looks of it, Bruce had won them another couple of months, maybe even half a year, if they kept their efforts up.

It wasn’t enough.

Tim wouldn’t be ready to lose his big brother any more in six months, than he was ready to give him up now.

Maybe it would be easier, if Dick wanted to live, but Tim was kind of an expert on wanting to die. He knew… he knew how absolutely wrecked Dick felt right now, even if he couldn’t understand the humiliation and body horror that had to accompany Dick’s abysmal mental health.

And if Tim knew one thing, it was the first step to getting better, was surviving.

If they managed to get Dick back from the edge of death, they would also manage to get Dick’s mind out of the emotional and mental traps he had fallen into.

So, Tim knew what he had to do.

It was easy in a way – Bruce was Batman, and he was good, and great, and powerful. But Tim?

Tim had punched a hole into the reality of the universe and brought Bruce back from the dead, just by purely believing in it. Sometimes he asked himself if Bruce had really been alive back when Tim first saw the tapestry and realized that Bruce was stuck in time – or if it had been disillusion talking.

But, no, the outcome was all that mattered, and that didn’t change either way.

Tim had done the un-doable. And he would do it again.

He would do it for Dick.

He would leave in the morning, his bags already packed and loaded into the back of the Batplane, but before Tim could go, he needed to say goodbye.

No matter what happened, Tim needed to see his brother one last time – be it because Tim miscalculated and got killed or be it because Bruce wasn’t enough and Dick died before Tim made it back. He needed this goodbye.

His steps were careful and silent as he made his way towards Dick’s room. The door was open, and when Tim glanced inside, he saw a sight that was familiar by now:

Damian sleeping next to Dick, pressed closed against the still so foreign body, and Dick awake, the lack of energy making it hard to sleep, ironically. Dick’s eyes found Tim in a matter of seconds, and for a moment Tim wondered if anyone had ever told Dick that they had been changed as well.

They were glowing in the darkness, daring Tim to enter.

He did.

Dick didn’t react until Tim had reached his bed, the soft hiss of the oxygen the only thing audible. And then Dick spoke, his voice a weak whisper:

“What are you doing? Something dumb?”

Dick didn’t look like the Dick Grayson Tim had met as a child anymore, neither did he look like Robin, or Nightwing, or Batman… but his voice was still the same, even beaten down like this. And Tim could feel the mirth hidden in it, the years of brotherly companionship:

“Yeah… so dumb, it is going to save you.”

“Timmy…”

“No, I won’t let you die. Sorry, but I can’t let you do that.”

It was heart wrenching – and scarily familiar – to look into Dick’s eyes and see the pain in them. Dick was an excellent actor, he had hidden it well, or better than expected, but Tim could see his desire for death. He could see the self-hatred, and the sadness, and the pride still hidden in there somewhere.

Tim would save his brother – it was as simple as that.

“Tim…”

“I love you, Dick. I… I will be back, and you better be alive when I do.”

“No promises.”

“Dick…”

“I love you, too, Timmy…”

There were tears running down Dick’s cheeks, and Tim could them feel being mirrored on his own face. It would have to be enough – Dick’s love for his family one of the strongest emotional motivators Tim had ever encountered.

“Look after yourself… and after the brat.”

With that Tim left.

He had a brother to save.

And he would do just that.


End file.
